3 Piastres - Victoria

Cyprus came under British administration in 1878 when the Ottoman Empire ceded control following the Congress of Berlin, though Ottoman suzerainty technically persisted until 1914. The piastre denominations issued for the island were a deliberate compromise — British administration, British silver, but a unit of account familiar to the local population from centuries of Ottoman rule. The 1901 date places this among the final issues of the Victorian series for Cyprus, struck just months before the queen's death in January of that year.